980 Kia Soul EV registrations in Germany in October alone is nearly 60% of all BEVs.

It seems at least Germany is the European hub for Kia Soul EV deliveries – we suspect most of these sales originate from other regions (ie- Norway), but are registered from the OEM out of Germany due to allocation issues, and the desire for emissions help inside the EU.

Kia Soul EV

Plug-in electric car registrations in Germany – October 2015

The Renault ZOE also spiked nicely with 243 registrations. Tesla Model S improved to 121, while BMW saw more than 112 all-electric i3s out of a total of 201 i3s (BEV & REx).

Volkswagen moved a total of 380 plug-in hybrids (and about 84 BEVs). 167 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEVs was slightly ahead of 134 Audi A3 e-trons and a total of 124 plug-in hybrids from Mercedes.

That’s all the major models and brands above the mark of 100 registrations.

55 responses to "Plug-In Electric Car Sales Surge In Germany To Record High In October"

Let’s see now, what it is that separates countries where PEVs are selling well from countries where they’re not? Government incentives for EVs, that’s what. Now let’s see, has there been anything new this year in Germany which might explain the upsurge in sales… the true reason, and not the addition of one more EV (the KIA Soul EV) to the mix?

Let’s see what Wikipedia has to say…

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In August 2014, the federal government announced its plan to introduce non-monetary incentives through new legislation to be effective by 1 February 2015. The proposed user benefits include measures to privilege battery-powered cars, fuel cell vehicles and some plug-in hybrids, just like Norway does, by granting local governments the authority to allow these vehicles into bus lanes, and to offer free parking and reserved parking spaces in locations with charging points.[51][52] Not all plug-in hybrids will qualify for the benefits, only those with CO2 emissions of no more than 50 g/km or an all-electric range of over 30 km (19 mi) are eligible.
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[end quote]

Well, if I had taken a closer look at the graph above, I probably wouldn’t have made that post. Overall, I don’t see any significant upsurge in 2015 sales; overall, it looks more like the same gradual growth trend from previous years. Perhaps the October spike was due more to auto dealer sales promotions and/or unseasonably good weather, rather than any new guv’mint incentives this year.

Or maybe it’s fallout from dieselgate. Maybe those Germans who previously would have bought a diesel VW, are now looking a lot harder at EVs.

I hope we remove the largest subsidy of all: the U.S Gov’t subsidizing oil. The U.S provides the defense budget of all OPEC countries. OPEC countries don’t bother w/an effective military b/c the U.S provides one for them. We even fight their wars. And we die for them, Have you ever heard of thousands of OPEC countries’ soldiers dying in any war? In a truly free market, OPEC nations would pay for their own military and be able to defend themselves, but no, we subsidized that for them. On top of that, they make trillions per yr, and still they don’t pay for a useful military. Have then pay for a real army and have them fight their own wars. Then the true price of oil would be revealed. The resulting high oil price would force U.S entrepreneurs to create alternatives, either EVs, FCVs or possibly another technology that was never invented b/c oil was always so cheap Remove this subsidy for oil, and there would be no need for EV subsidies. This is the free market.

Absolutely right…claw back all the subsidies and tax credits those polluting criminals have ever gotten before touching one cent of the thoughtful, sensible incentives that actually help the world. Sheesh… I get so tired of the unwitting big oil trolls.

The Iraq invasion of 2003 was a war of choice based on false pretenses, and most other countries were against it (and they were right, as we now know). So why would you expect them to have sent troops into this fiasko?

If you want to complain about a lack of local involvement, you should do so in the context of the current fight against ISIS (which, BTW, wouldn’t exist without the Iraq invasion). Countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey could easily handle this on their own, but of course they all have their own interests as part of the bigger sectarian conflicts in the area.

InsideEVs focuses on the North American market, where the VW e-Golf has sold only in compliance numbers until just last month. That’s not to say that there’s no coverage of markets outside North America, but other markets get less coverage.

We can argue about whether it’s “right” or “wrong” to focus on the North American market, and not give equal weight to Europe and other regions, but that’s the focus which the InsideEVs editors have chosen to give their website. “Those who do the work, get to set the rules.” — Pushmi-Pullyu

And most people who post here live in North America, so it’s no surprise that the e-Golf gets dismissed here as just one out of many compliance cars. If VW wants its e-Golf to be take to be taken seriously in America, then it needs to sell that EV in much greater numbers here.

Just as a random note a we were just having an internal conversation about this.

We try to spread story coverage based on the interest/readership demos by English reading people arriving at the site.

Interestingly, 3 years ago it was 85% North America – so IEV had the vast majority of news of out the US, but that has shifted to about 65% today…which is why there is so much more European/Asia coverage now than before – the fine author here (Mark) based of Europe would be one such example of the shift.

Given the trend, we wouldn’t be surprised to see it hit 50/50 in a couple year’s time (and articles to follow suit)…although I suspect the Model 3, LEAF 2.0 and Bolt will have some effect slowing/reversing the demos in 2017 for a bit.

I was curious about which countries outside North America gave the most traffic to InsideEVs, and found out it was India, Spain, and Italy, respectively, with only 58% of the traffic coming from North America. I don’t know if the above numbers are accurate.

Are there any plans to increase InsideEVs social media presence/profile?

Readership is ~1.2 million/month, ~40k/day
—
As for social media, we populate our twitter and Facebook feeds but that is it. Just our opinion but it is easy to waste hours on trying to satisfy that beast (over actually working on content), and end of the day it is evil (for websites/businesses)…at some point (like Facebook – ask Nike) they turn the tables on you and make you pay to reach the same people who you provided that social media with content for.

InsideEVs is 100% organic, if people care to read us, they find us direct…we don’t rely on gimmicks, social media, links, story plants on larger platforms, etc. If all the social media closed up tomorrow (or started pay-per-play like FB) – we would be unaffected.

Could we work all the other angles and have more casual and redirected traffic and bump traffic 50%? Yeah, but honestly we don’t want or need it…and it is a temporary/artificial thing that you have to constantly feed.

“Interestingly, 3 years ago it was 85% North America – so IEV had the vast majority of news of out the US, but that has shifted to about 65% today…which is why there is so much more European/Asia coverage now than before…”

Thanks for the inside InsideEVs scoop, Jay! 🙂

If coverage is shifting more towards Europe, have you given any thought to extending the Monthly Plug-in Sales Scorecard to cover European sales?

Yes, I realize that would require much more work, but if your staff is growing, maybe you could delegate that. Anyway, just asking.

What’s going to displace more fossil fuels? The 121 Model S’s? Or the 500+ PHEVs from VW group? Regardless, my point is that VW deserves much more credit than is given by commenters on this site given that we’re arguing over whether Tesla or VW is having a greater impact in Germany.

I think it’s a combined effort, Tesla catches everyone’s attention, and shows them how awesome EVs are, and then companies like VW show that EVs are going mainstream (and don’t need to look weird like a Leaf). But again, I’m not trying to argue that VW is leading the charge towards electrification in any way, I’m just arguing that they deserve more credit than they get by commenters on this site.

Jose Pontes at EV sales blog is almost 100% sure most of these Soul EVs are going to Norway, whose Kia dealerships don’t get enough cars to satisfy the demand.

Here’s the money quote:
“Norway, a place that has more imported Soul EV (991 units) this year than first time registrations (630 sales) in the same period. The norwegian Kia importer has tried to displace part of the allotment from Germany to its home market, but insiders suggest that the german Kia importer has repeatedly denied the request, mostly because of benefits (Cold hard €€€€) it gets from the mothership Kia.”

PHEVs with less than 30 miles AER should not be included. Companies make them only to comply to emission standards, greenwash and benefit the torque of the electric motor to their essentially ICE cars. The savings of toxics are minimal.
At least put them in a separate category.
For the sake of the environmental cause there should be a separate category for only electrics also.

Isn’t it the purpose of this site? Witnessing and helping the advancement of clean cars?

By putting weak PHEVS, PHEVs and BEVs in the same calculations, you play the game of the ICE car makers.

Well it may not be 30 miles, maybe 25, I don’t know.. there has to be a threshold. Some more talented people could do the maths and statistical calculations of when those cars become useless for saving CO2 vs the miles they are driven in AER daily.
You will agree with me that 15 miles is not a green car.
You may be looking for a 30 miles AER car for your strict specific needs, but I’m not sure you will never go to the mall or else returning home. Besides, it’s more the lack of commitment from the companies that would be addressed. In 2016 any company can do better than 30 miles AER!

It is all relative to how it is being driven. Plenty of people have 20 mile commutes and then drive long distances on week ends. If the distance is over 200 miles, a high MPG PHEV would be greener than owning a BEV for the week days and an ICE to make the week end journey.

We all see an all electric highway someday. For now, even the Prius HEV has played a big roll in getting where we need to go.

For now, a single car household in many cases will be greener owning a Tesla, BMW I3 Rex, or Chevy Volt. Of course some of that depends on price.

I still favor a BEV + EREV for the best two car solution for a very long time.

I said it before, any company can do better than 30 miles AER.
Maybe cutting the incentives for those under 30 miles would stimulate them a bit.
The goal of incentives are to get the most clean miles isn’t it?
In that spirit, these cars should be classified in a separate “weak” category by green sites.

There is no lower limit for the AER. Even one mile would be be helpful to reduce CO2. It’s not optimal but even the Prius plug-in was doing ~20% fuel reductions.

And you say less than 30 miles is not relevant. On the contrary the optimal range would be somewhere around ~20 miles AER, where added cost vs. fuel reductions vs. currently available battery capacity makes most sense.
It’s not by chance that for example VW are doing 8-10 kWh batteries to their PHEVs, that we will see in the millions in a few years.

I want people to have lots of range, but if we would maximize the impact then 30+ miles EVs should not be produced at all because that adds too much cost and gives little added return.

I do believe that there is room for all different ranges though, including super-inefficient ones like the Model S or even the Volt for all of us that want to go all or almost all electric too. Thankfully not everything is about optimizing the impact. 😉

Just remember how the Prius plug-in was a disappointment. But it seems it was the cartel’s strategy all along, as other companies surprisingly rolled out such lame AER hybrids… It worked, as I can see in other comments, taking it for granted that any AER is good, without considering the regression from electric vehicles.

Considering that the electric motor uses it’s energy 5 times better than ICE, I don’t see the logic in describing the Tesla as “inefficient”.

“We expect changes to cell chemistry and Gigafactory scale benefits to reduce battery cost by 50%+ by 2020.Our analysis details a potential path to a 30% cell-level cost reduction to ~$88/kWh by using a more efficient lithium-rich nickel cobalt manganese cathode ”
and
“The Gigafactory, which is expected to begin production in early ’16, should drive down pack-level costs by 70% to ~$38/kWh via economies of scale, supply chain optimization, increased automation, and production domestication.”

My guess is Tesla already has a ~$125 cost. You choose which speculation fits you best. NOBODY will know for sure until Tesla choose to disclose their costs… if ever…

BTW GM has no plausible reason to disclose the real cost of the most critical part of their upcoming Bolt to the competition. The only part that may still justify the high prices of BEVs.
It is a P.R. twist … aimed at us.

Don’t forget that we are still at the very beginning of this modern automotive battery era.
We don’t really know the limits of miniaturisation, new chemistries and density. But we know that an ICE is very near it’s limit (will never 50%) vs the electric motor (+90%), and that the energy density of a gallon of black poison will never change.

Prius plug-in is the perfect lane-cheater car in California. Buy a PiP and never plug it in. Get a green sticker. Drive the HOV lane alone every day and save 30 Commute minutes each way. Great planning….sheesh. It is not far different than GE buying thousands of employees Volts and Energi cars and then also giving them gas cards for free gas.

“Please specify exacly why 29 miles of AER is irrelevant and 30 miles is relevant.”

I think most of us are glad that InsideEVs gives us data on all highway-capable plug-in EV passenger vehicles sold in first-world countries, and doesn’t have the kind of arbitrary cutoff suggested by RexxSee. If someone wants to ignore some of the data, then they can apply their own personal filter.

I regularly post complaints about legacy auto makers making yet another tiny-EV-ranged PHEV, but I certainly wouldn’t suggest that InsideEVs shouldn’t cover them!

We need coverage of all highway-capable PEV passenger vehicles; bad, mediocre, good, and great. We need that range of information so we have some basis for meaningful comparisons.

In fact, I’d like to see more coverage of EVs which are not highway-capable passenger vehicles. I was glad to see an article here not so long ago about diesel-electric train locomotives. Those are EVs too!

EVs made up almost 20% of Kias total sales! And they just sold 90 diesel Souls, 51 petrol ones and 980 electric Souls. If the Soul EV would be a separate model, it would be the second best selling Kia in this month, just a couple of units behind the Sportage.

80-90% to Norway, and for them the numbers are normal. End of year there will be a number available how many keep in Germany. Than we will see Germany is one of the slowest growing markets behind UK, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, that’s poor.